This past year was our first experiment in raised-bed gardening. We tore out a good portion of our front lawn (yes, our front lawn!) and filled it with six or seven raised cedar beds surrounded by a gravel walkway. It’s been delightful, but we’re learning as we go.

For instance … radishes. I planted them for the first time. I was told they were impossibly easy, foolproof. But I messed up. I didn’t thin them out as much as they needed, and as the plants grew, they began crowding themselves out. In July not a single radish had produced anything more than a pencil eraser-sized bulb.

I’ll try again. But it made me stop and think about how often we crowd our lives with the trappings and “stuff” that we have in this world—how often we get so busy that we are overwhelmed and then (oops) we aren’t producing any fruit. Or worse yet, we’ve convinced ourselves that 10% of our effort is all God is looking for.

There’s an old saying: “If the devil doesn’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.” Ouch. While perhaps not doctrinally sound, it’s an interesting saying that hits hard. We often think of sin as an overt offense against someone, but letting earthly priorities crowd out Christ can be just as dangerous!

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).